Contribution of the peripheral system to auditory signal processing in modeling the precedence effect

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Abstract

The precedence effect, or the law of the first wave, is important for localization of sound sources in a reverberant environment. Sound propagates in multiple directions and is subsequently reflected from different surfaces. As a result, the listener is faced with sound waves from the sound source and also with its reflections. However, despite this “acoustic chaos”, the listener can localize the sound source fairly accurately. This review is regarded to “peripheral” models of the precedence effect. The effect is explained by peripheral auditory processing without the central inhibition. This article reviews the precedence effect and its properties; describes the localization of the sound source and the structure of the peripheral part of the human auditory system; describes the general points of all peripheral models; discusses similarities and differences between models; and proposes further development paths.

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M. Yu. Agaeva

Pavlov Institute of Physiology, Russian Academy of Sciences

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Email: AgaevaMY@infran.ru
Russian Federation, St. Petersburg, 199034

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2. Fig. 1. Instantaneous displacement of the basilar membrane (BM). The gray and black lines show the displacement of BM at two consecutive moments in time, obtained on the basis of the cochlea model. The dotted line shows the envelope constructed from the peaks of the signal amplitude (according to [5]).

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3. Fig. 2. Stimulus configurations used in the models. A — the signals consisted of clicks. Type I — single reference signals. Each signal consisted of two clicks, dichotically applied to the right and left ears. On the left is a signal whose perceived position is on the left (diagram above the clicks), since the click to the left ear arrives earlier than to the right by the value of ΔT. On the right — clicks to the right and left ears arrive simultaneously, and the perceived position is along the midline of the head. Types II and III — paired signals modeling EP. Type II — a configuration where the information about ΔT is contained either in the direct signal or in the echo signal. Type III — both the direct and the echo signal contain information about ΔT. B — the signals consisted of noise parcels. Type I — single reference signal. Type III — modeling EP. The direct signal is shown in black, the echo signal is in gray. The delay was introduced from the beginning of the direct signal to the beginning of the echo signal. ΔT1 is the interaural delay of the direct signal, ΔT2 is the interaural delay of the echo signal (according to [ 25, 49, 65, 74]).

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4. Fig. 3. Schematic representation of the main blocks and modules in the EP models

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5. Fig. 4. Output signals of a gammatone filter with a central frequency (CF) of 500 Hz in the left column, 676 Hz in the right column, depending on time. The signals were pairs of clicks, shown in the diagram of Fig. 2A, type II, on the right, fed to the left (black) and right ears (gray). The upper part of the figure shows the output data of the left and right filters. The second and third rows of each column show the instantaneous values ​​of ΔT and ΔI, measured after filtering. The arrows show the actual differences in the echo signal (according to [25]). See the text for explanations.

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